Agitate, educate, organise!‏

In the aftermath of the general election, trade unions have a unique role in leading the fight back against the Tory offensive, writes John Stevenson of UNISON Scotland:
    'The Tories know how influential we can be and that’s why we are about to face attacks threatening our very existence. That means getting back to organising, recruiting, engaging, educating and agitating. We have a membership to represent and they are going to need us now more than ever'
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-d6bd-Divided-we-stood,-and-divided-we-fell-Now-its-time-to-rebuild-Labour#.VVLt2iRwa1s

Why Workers Won't Unite: That is the question

In her review of two US books on the decline of unions in the States, Kim Philips Fein of NYU takes us through a hop, skip and a jump of US Union history and then dives into a complex seeming summary of the current state of the American Trade Unions. It's a familiar journey, 100 years ago unions were oppressed but we worked in occupations that lumped us together and now this has disappeared and is being replaced by jobs that are almost wholly precarious and involves mainly service workers in solo occupations.
   So far, so familiar. But let us pause. US union density now stands at about 12%. In the private sector it is 7%. Any explanation for this will have to include the play of certain factors that may not apply in the UK. Or anywhere else in the world. So an examination of the US labour movement is not necessarily very useful when looking at the UK.
http://m.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/why-workers-wont-unite/386228/

Does it matter which union is the 'largest'?

Inter union rivalry has been a negative characteristic of British trade unionism for more than a century. The highly unionised teaching profession is strongly contested by 3 TUC affiliated unions and claims of the 'best', 'biggest' and 'largest' trade union feature on union websites and other communications. The NUT recently lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) about an NASUWT job advertisement which included a claim to be 'the largest teachers' union in the UK'. The complaint was upheld and the NASUWT must not repeat the advert in its current form. The ASA has told the NASUWT to ensure it holds evidence to support such claims in future.
    A parallel situation arguably exists between Unite and UNISON with the former claiming to be 'Britain's biggest trade union' despite having 150,000 fewer paying members. But does size matter? The Con Dem Government seems to think so with Part 3 of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 bringing in a new statutory requirement for unions to submit a membership audit certificate (verified by an independent assurer) to the Certification Office each year. The pretext for this legislation was that unions 'should reflect the will of their members' but in reality it is about marginalising unions from public life. And faced with such hostile state interference maybe it's time for unions to end one-upmanship and place greater emphasis on trade union unity rather than making competitive claims more befitting of mobile phone firms and supermarket chains?
http://asa.org.uk/Rulings/Adjudications/2015/1/NASUWT/SHP_ADJ_261873.aspx#.VNUtNlZFDIX

The Union Advantage

#TUC14 On the eve of the annual Trades Union Congress in Liverpool, the TUC has today published The Union Advantage, a guide to how unions make work better and society fairer. The guide demonstrates the benefits of unions not only to individual workers but to employers and society as well. These include:
•55 per cent of unionised workplaces had pay rises in 2011, compared to just 35 per cent of non-unionised workplaces
•16 – 24 year-old union members earn, on average, 33 per cent more than non-union members of the same age
•Union members have 3.8 days more paid leave on average than non-union members
•Unionlearn improves Britain’s skills base and it supported 219,000 learners through apprenticeships, numeracy, literacy and other learning programmes in the year to March 2014
•Union health and safety reps save taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds each year by reducing lost time from occupational injuries and work-related illness, according to government research.

https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/TUC_UnionADV.pdf

Unions under the microscope

Last week’s Radio 4 broadcast of a debate on the state of the unions coincided with the BIS publication of the Government’s annual estimate of union membership in the UK. It was a mixed bag of a report with 2013 showing positive growth (+61,000) in private sector membership but that welcome trend was offset by a marginal decline in overall union density (down to 25.6%). The same might be said of the radio debate, which included Frances O’Grady and Alan Johnson MP as well as some excellent studio audience input. Available online until Wednesday 4 June.

The varying practices & narratives of organising

An accelerated increase in both the number of members and membership density offers 'a solid basis, in challenging times, to progress a vision of the “organising model” that genuinely seeks to further empower lay structures to help improve the working lives of teachers and posit a better vision of education' writes the NUT's Christine Blower in a useful contribution to the debate on union renewal:
https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-6e5a-Empowering-lay-structures#.U1L4jVpwbIU

Moment of reckoning for UNISON in health

#uHealth14 There is a beautiful blue sky and the sun is dancing on the gentle waves lapping the Brighton shore line. All appears calm. But hundreds of UNISON activists are pouring into the Brighton conference centre for the national Health Conference. The delegates are angry and rightly so. It is clear from the off that this year's conference will be dominated by pay.
    Standing orders has admitted an emergency motion on pay from the SGE. Early speeches by the SGE Chair and the General Secretary set the scene and anticipation of the pay debate has hung over the proceedings as delegates appear itching to give the go ahead for a broad based campaign on pay within the service.

The future of unionised work is in our own hands

Union activists all over the world should read this account of the life of Shonda Roberts who works for KFC in San Jose, California. She lives in the richest economy in the world, the richest economy actually in the history of the world. This is an economy that sends armies and navies all over the world, that still maintains thousands of stock piled nuclear weapons, that generates trillions of dollars in investment and profit, that can boycott Cuba and subsidise Israel. This economy can maintain a differential between lowest paid workers wages and CEO of an average of 1 dollar to 475 dollars. The US economy can cause bust or boom across Europe. It can plunge the world in depression when its sub prime market collapses.

Unions in 2014 - big chance or no chance?

In a Guardian interview over the holiday period TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady was upbeat on union prospects next year: ‘Our big chance will be in 2014 because we are going to see confidence return as unemployment dips and the economy recovers’. Not for the first time the TUC is looking to the USA for a campaign model - where unions such as SEIU have formed impressive worker led coalitions of civic groups and local politicians in support of workers’ rights in fast food chains.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/dec/26/tuc-frances-ogrady-rebuild-union-membership

10 reasons to oppose Trade Unions

Barry Deutsch http://leftycartoons.com/ten-reasons-were-against-unions/

Is This What Europeans Want?

The New York Times asks whether the Europeans want the US deregulation economy, with tiny unions and no legal minimums of any note. It is a good question. If we can re phrase it - is it what the governments and corporate bosses want and what can the unions do about it? Certainly it is what our economic masters want.

UK Unions – arresting the decline

Union density in the private sector has dropped to 14% and more than half the UK workforce has never been a member of a trade union (a proportion which has doubled since 1985). A short FT video examines the profound challenges facing the trade union movement in recruiting new members and remaining relevant. Frances O’Grady, TUC General Secretary, says ‘we have to do more to invest in organising, to having mature and sensible conversations with more employers about the benefits which unionisation can bring’
http://video.ft.com/2857036809001/Unions-face-up-to-new-challenges/latest

Misdiagnosed labour pains

The Economist has highlighted the continued drop in the `labour share’ of national income around the world - a drop from 66% to 62% - and it is going to continue to curve down according to the OECD. This is consistent with a decline in union power across the world and the continued race to the bottom between global companies. But the house journal of big business presents this as a natural and unavoidable state of the world economy. It claims it is down to immigrant labour, to technology and to deregulation:
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21588900-all-around-world-labour-losing-out-capital-labour-pains

Sympathy is not enough - get up, stand up

Many union activists are suffering from sympathy fatigue. Some journalists and academics make a liberal charity style case for public service workers that frankly is beginning to wear thin. Even David Cameron asked the Tory Party conference for a round of applause for `the great work done by our social workers.` It seems that perceptions of public sector workers in the media fall into two categories.

UNISON - adapting to a changing environment?

‘We have a very clear view. We believe that public services are best provided by the public sector. Because you get the public service ethos, the services are provided on a comprehensive basis and not for profit. But over 20 years ago, we recognised that privatisation was on the increase and that we could no longer be just a public sector union,’ says Dave Prentis in an interview published by Ethos, the public policy journal of business services conglomerate Serco. The UNISON General Secretary explains the twin track approach which the union has honed since the 1980's privatisation of the UK's major utilities - 'We do meet with the private companies. And we do say openly that our principled position is to swing the pendulum back towards the public sector being the preferred provider. But we also recognise that we have to build a relationship with private sector employers. You can only have collective bargaining if you’ve got a relationship’
http://www.ethosjournal.com/topics/public-service-delivery/item/465-the-interview-with-dave-prentis-unison

Membership trends confirm that Organising is mission critical

#TUC13 Labour Research Department (LRD) has published a useful analysis of union membership trends over the past four years and highlights a contraction of 250,000 (3.8%) – mainly in the public sector, manufacturing and finance. Overall union membership since 2009 has fallen faster than the drop in workforce numbers. Whilst 2012’s 66,000 (1%) year on year rise in union membership was welcome news the underlying trends give serious cause for concern and underlines the continuing importance of the organising agenda being at the forefront of union objectives and strategies:
http://www.lrdpublications.org.uk/publications.php?pub=LR&iss=1684&id=idp7505224

Ideology - an essential component of union growth strategies

This year we had the welcome news that unions are growing again in the UK. Despite having been subject to austerity, some of the most draconian anti trade union laws in the world, privatisation and decreasing wage levels, unions are stirring.
  Yet in the closed world of union organising the most advocated model of such campaigns is the US inspired version, promoted by a number of unions and even provoking a 2005 split in the AFL/CIO resulting in the `Change to Win` alliance led by the SEIU. The split is healing and the AFL/CIO remains the main union coalition in the US.

What is the trade union movement’s core mission?

The announcement of the USA trade union centre AFL/CIO’s new strategy to form alliances with grassroots community organisations has been heralded as ‘a return to its 19th-century roots when the labour movement claimed to speak for, we call them ‘the 99%’ today.’ Similar transformative claims accompanied Unite’s launch in 2011 of a category of community membership for the unemployed and students beyond that unions established sphere of influence.

Fortress UNISON - the way forward?

The Democracy Journal contains a fascinating and provocative article about what the author sees as the failure of union led organising campaigns to stop the decline of Labor (sic) Unions in the USA. Rich Yeselson cites the raft of anti union measures contained in the US Taff Hartley legislation of the 1940s as the hammer that broke the back of unions in the US - right at the point of their highest ever density and apparent power. From a density of around 50% US unions have steadily melted away to a current 7% of workers in a union:
http://www.democracyjournal.org/29/fortress-unionism.php?page=all

Strong support at NDC for UNISON's organising agenda

#undc13 The conference debate on organising and recruitment was the most comprehensive in the 20 year history of the union. NEC member Sue Highton moved motion 1 which confirmed that workplace activity is essential to recruitment and emphasised the importance of developing new activists if the union is to adapt to new employer structures.
http://www.unison.org.uk/news/conference-rises-to-the-challenge-of-recruitment
   In a similar vein, Diane Kelly (pictured) North West regional delegate moved amendment 1.1 stating that ‘if we are to fight back, it’ll be with one hand tied behind our back. Because less than four out of ten local government workers are in a union. Less than six out of ten health workers are in a union. And the picture just gets worse in the other services.'